Think Carefully Before You Plant A Tree, Eucalyptus Edition

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A neighbor's Eucalyptus comes down piece by piece.   

The size of the (very brave) man in the tree gives you a better idea how tall this tree was.
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It was about 90 feet (27 meters) tall.   Neighboring trees, better situated, can remain.
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The doomed Eucalyptus, planted by a previous homeowner, was squeezed between the house and power lines.  To avoid brushing the power lines, it was limbed up high above them.  The limbs on the power-line-side were also shortened, unfortunately encouraging growth towards the house.
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This man has five young children at home. 
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The space proved simply too small for a 90 foot tree.  Think before you plant.  I left before the rest of the tree came down.  By now it is firewood. 
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And this very brave, hardworking man is back home with his family. 
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Comments

  1. OMG, i wonder how he was able to climb it! He certainly is very brave. But it is assuring and not very scary in your areas as they have harnesses and gadgets to assure their safety. In this parts, you know, they do that without these gadgets, so it's really very difficult. In our property in the province i have many trees which need pruning like that, but there's no taker!

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  2. He did have good equipment Andrea, and he was very, very careful and deliberate in his work, in addition to being brave!

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  3. That's a beautiful house. It looks much better without the scary tree. I planted a eucalyptus in my little backyard once for the scent of a childhood lived in the orange groves with the big trees as windbreaks, but I was terrified by its first year's growth. Thank goodness- I cut it down then.

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  4. Eucalyptus are beautiful but they often grow to unmanageable sizes. I have a friend that has one growing over his house, and it has the heaviest non-supported branches. We keep joking that if it gets ravaged by wind, he might need a new place to live. Cool montage of photos!

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  5. We have friends in Sydney, and even there, they're having problems with gum trees. The one in their backyard lost a huge branch last year. Luckily it only destroyed their fence. As much I love eucalyptus trees, I wouldn't want one near my house.

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  6. @Renee, yes, its a beautiful house, isn't it? They did a great job. You saved yourself some big $$$ taking your tree out before it got too big for you to take out!

    @SGP & Gerhard, yes they are beautiful trees, so graceful, but just not appropriate for the average-sized lot.

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  7. Great post, that I cannot agree with enough. A favorite saying I recall from Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano was - "don't eucalytize California". Travel to Australia, instead. (and don't put a big tree in a small space for the sake of shade)

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  8. Driving back on I-5 from our little excursion to San Diego a few weeks ago, I was stunned at the number of Eucs. You would honestly think you were in Australia...

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  9. As an Aussie, I absolutely agree that eucalyptus should be planted with care. There are some lovely grafted varieties "Summer Red' and 'Summer Beauty' that are fine in smaller gardens, but regular eucalyptus are notorious for dropping branches and are highly flammable because of the oil content, hence the devastating bushfires we experience in summertime.

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